The quality of a dog’s relationship to humans is a crucial determinant of social behavior

For more than a decade, Jozsef Topál has been at the forefront of research indicating that dogs have a special ability, that few other animals possess, to notice and respond to social signals from humans. Topál and his colleagues at Loránd Eötvös University in Hungary have begun to demonstrate that this canine ability to connect with humans is enhanced, if not determined, by the amount and kind of interaction a dog has had with people. The primary distinction is not whether the dog has been trained or even when he was first exposed to contact with people as a puppy. The watershed seems to be between dogs that live with people as day-to-day companions, and those who live in relative isolation from humans.